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Saturday, January 15, 2005

film: Elektra

Directed by the X-File’s Rob Bowman, Elektra is a character from the world of the Daredevil comic book, and Jennifer Garner played the role in the Daredevil film that starred a wooden Ben Affleck.

Assassin Elektra receives a request to kill a man (Mark Miller)and his child (Abby) from her agent. The twosome happen to be her neighbors at the lake, where Elektra has just settled in for a few weeks. Abby, a lonesome troublemaker ends up bonding with Elektra. When the father and daughter fall under the attack of the “Hand”, a mysterious collective whose members have X-Men-like powers, Elektra becomes their protector. Later on, she discovers exactly why the “Hand” wishes to kill Abby.

Elektra is portrayed as mostly uptight and humorless by Jennifer Warner. She appears unhappy and is reluctant to let anyone get too close to her, as she is battling personal demons and nightmares of her past.

Some of the scenes are too cheesy to buy into. Tattoo, one of the bad guys, is able to make the animal tattoos on his body come alive in the form of birds, snakes, spiders and wolves. He uses these animals to chase and attack the Millers. Typhoid, a beautiful (what else?) model-like brunette, draws the life out of anything she touches. As she walks through the forest, the leaves around her instantly wither and dry up. Stone is an enormous black guy whose body resists gun shots and stabs from Elektra’s metal weapons. Kirigi is a master Japanese swordsman, who has the ability to move very quickly. Elektra is light on her feet as well, but has an ability to see actions before they happen. She believes these powers are not fully developed, however, since her training with her blind master, Stick (Terrence Stamp) wasn’t competed. You just knew he had to be blind.

This film does not feel fully realized. I found little reason to care for Elektra or Abby. There’s not enough of Elektra’s training tradition explained to make it seem interesting, not enough myth making and real storytelling. Character development is neutered in favour of visuals (witness the cascading, billowing sheet scene in the duel with Kirigi) and action scenes. This film will have to sell itself based on its previews because it can’t be sold by word of mouth.